1. Field of the Disclosure
The following is directed to abrasive articles, and particularly abrasive articles including abrasive particles secured to an elongated body.
2. Description of the Related Art
A variety of abrasive tools have been developed over the past century for various industries for the general function of removing material from a workpiece, including for example sawing, drilling, polishing, cleaning, carving, and grinding. In particular respect to the electronics industry, abrasive tools suitable for slicing single crystal ingots of material to form wafers, such as silicon wafers is particularly pertinent. As the industry continues to mature, the ingots have increasingly larger diameters, and it has become acceptable to use loose abrasives and wire saws for such works due to yield, productivity, affected layers, dimensional constraints and the like factors.
Wire saws include abrasive tools that include abrasive particles attached to a long length of wire that can be spooled at high speeds to produce a cutting action. While circular saws, and the like, are limited to a cutting depth of less than the radius of the blade, wire saws can have greater flexibility allowing for cutting of straight or profiled cutting paths.
Certain conventional wire saws are produced by sliding steel beads over a metal wire or cable, wherein the beads are typically separated by spacers and the beads are covered by abrasive particles which are commonly attached by either electroplating or sintering. However, electroplating and sintering operations can be time consuming and thus costly ventures, prohibiting rapid production of the wire saw abrasive tool. Some attempts have been made to attach abrasive particles via chemical bonding processes, such as brazing, but such fabrication methods reduce the flexibility of the wire saw, and the braze coating becomes susceptible to fatigue and premature failure. Other wire saws may use a resin to bond the abrasives to the wire. Unfortunately, the resin bonded wire saws tend to wear quickly and the abrasives are lost well before the useful life of the particles is realized.
Accordingly, the industry continues to need improved wire saw abrasive tools and method of forming such tools.